Usually I end up making the difficulty go higher and higher the more I play because the game gets too easy for me. I just got the dlc and unlocked legendary dificulty and want to give that a go, but I'm hoping for a real and serious challenge so I'm going to play in legendary from the very beginning. Need some opinions on some things first

NOTE for this playthrough I'm not Role playing at all. I am picking everything purely from a tactical perspective.

Race : I am either going to pick a Breton or an Orc. Orcs have the epic nerd rage ability which doubles melee damage and reduces melee damage. Only downside is it provides no protection from mages and they can become a pain in butt. Bretons have the nice constant 25% magicka resistance and their ability lets them absorb magicka. I've never used Breton (in skyrim at least) so does his mean that it has a chance to completely take no damage? Which would you suggest?

I am not 100% sure on my exact play style but this is what I think I will do. I will always have a follower and possibly a band of followers (quest followers will follow you until their quest in completed) I also plan on using the ritual stone to have a small army. This ensures I wont be the center of attention. I kind of like the idea of a "necromancer" character with a lot of allies and using supporting spells like frenzy, paralysis, and other but at the same time capable of melee fighting tough opponents too. I dont want to just stand back the whole time, that would get boring fast. I will have a bow for stealth attacks. I can't make up my mind of armor preference. I am leaning more toward light armor if sneak is needed. Yeah you can make heavy weigh nothing but thats not until later in the game and i might need to sneak earlier on. However, I don't plan on using daggers for sneak so maybe I can still use heavy armor and sneak because im attacking long range? Thoughts on this?

Apparently people say destruction is horrible on legendary. I might just pick up impact perk for help with hard enemies, dragons, bosses, mudcrabs lol

I know I will use restoration for obvious reasons and maybe some alteration-flesh spells for added armor. Illusion will be nice to level up for frenzy spells. I just dont want to pump lots of points into magicka and have low health but then again I will have a party of fighers so i may not be getting hurt too much...

I plan on using alchemy which i dont normally do to make paralysis poisons and such. I think im going to switch between Spell + Spell, Shield + Sword, Bow, and maybe Shield + Spell. Don't think two handed will do me much good.

I will also do some smithing and enchanting but I dont plan on using exploits in this run through like the greybeard leveling trick. I also dont plan on grind-leveling any of my skills including enchanting, smithing, alchemy etc. I want to be versatile enough to handle any situation but dont want to spread myself thin

So yeah thats what I got so far, tell me your thoughts especially about race, armor, and anything useful you can think of. I'm very excited to play this as I can tell it will be quite the challenge! I don't have too much time to play but If you would like I can post updates to show everyone how its going

EDIT : I don't think I will become a vampire but im not sure. I've never played as one but the idea of having to feed seems very annoying. PLus im not sure if my followers and quest followers would end up attacking me or not lol

bump

The only advice I can give is to take it slow, be mindful of the situation(s) you are in AND be ready to die a lot Me personally I would go the tried and true " sword 'n' board " build with archery and maybe two-handed for a little variety. You can sneak as a warrior, there's no dishonor in that and don't let anyone tell you other wise.

I can't really comment on the magic using builds, for I have never bothered with any other then a Battle mage kind of build but even then I used the physical attacks more then the magic attacks. Sorry for not being much help there.

Armor wise.....Personal preference really, once you max out smithing all armors become equal for the most part. If you are going the sneak assassin type then yes light all the way. If you are going the warrior route then personally ( once again ) I would go heavy.

If you use destruction with impact then I would enchant your gear to give you a 0% cost reduction, you'll need it.

I have watched a few "lets play skyrim on legendary" videos and just about every single one the character is an assasin with a bow that just shoots and hides or one guy almost all of his videos he would attack, calm, attack, calm, etc.

Is there a viable way to play without being an assassin?

And I'm not sure if I want to make my necromancer character. Using the ritual stone looks like a lot of fun, having an army of servants, but I dont want it to become over powered or boring. Do you think it would?

I've played on legendary from the beginning with my current character, a knight. It is indeed viable however you must have a follower to tank for you. I'm lvl 30 now and I still need Lydia for more reasons than archery (my character has no ranged options at all). I go heavy armor with restoration and sword and board.

I've done it DiD with a couple different 2h warrior types. One with heavy armor, one with light armor. I actually preferred the light due to the better mobility early on. Just get quick reflexes in the block tree and move out of the way of power attacks. If you do want to use a melee warrior type like this, just make sure to stack as much health as you can, so you can avoid the dreaded insta-killcam from bandit chiefs wielding warhammers. You don't necessarily have to avoid all bandit camps early on, just be mindful of the enemy scale vs your health pool and armor.

I'll try to say what i do and a lot of it will fit what you're interested in. I did Breton on legendary, they would have to be the best defensive race overall with a flat 25% reduction to magic schools, which is a lot when legendary scales so high. The daily cooldown is also strong but situational like most daily c/d and i don't rate any of them highly. Next I'd probably play Dunmer.

Started off sword and board using resto. Using a follower always, legendary would be almost impossible and very painful without one. I put points into speech and Alchemy make potions using a phone app. Speech and alchemy will help level your character. I put minimal points into speech and block on left path. 7 in Alchemy. Never bother filling soul gems that's a waste of time, you have a cash cow in alchemy, buy soul gems.

Transmute your iron into silver/gold. Use the gems you find to make jewellery to level smithing quickly. Enchant then with those soul gems! You are doing this cos you want to get your character asap to be heard for legendary. In about 20 hours you could be level 35+ easily! Once you're a bit comfortable with surviving start dual wielding. Keep shield for backup. I've also put points into archery got sneak attacks, bears, sabre cats and dragons.

Because you are leveling quickly you can put points into sneak. I put 3 in for Archery buff. By about level 50 at 35hrs you can smith something like glass armor and dual enchant it. I then start putting points into destruction like you said you'd like to. But i user a simple mod that gives +100% damage making it balanced to master diffuculty. Don't bother with destruction on legendary if you wont buff it!! You can legendary alchemy for continuous levels and speech once to keep the invested perks but refund your points and put 3 in to sell to any merchant still.

Oh yeah with all that gold you are going to have level harder things to level as much as you can buy buying training, like destruction. At every level from 20+! Use your crafting levels wisely. Sometimes you can get 2-3 levels in about an hour this way!

I'm suprised you guys like followers so much. Their AI is so bad...I'd rather just fight alone

Bretons possess the racial ability called Dragonskin -- this power enables you to absorb 50% of the magicka from hostile spells for 60 seconds and may only be used once per day. On legendary difficulty, mages are arguably the greatest threats you will face for a great deal of time, a simple area attack spell such as Flames or Sparks draining your health at a ridiculous rate. I'd personally suggest you use a Breton for your play-through.

As far as armor preference is concerned, that's something I have never paid any mind to -- I simply prefer aesthetic value over armor rating, regardless of what difficulty I'm playing on. You'll have to ultimately decide what suits your needs, but also caters to your wants. If you're really ballsy then you could always attempt to play without armor, using only robes. Good luck with that.

Destruction loses all of its charm on any difficulty past adept. I don't recommend bothering yourself with it, especially since leveling it on legendary difficulty would be beyond tedious. As far as health and magicka are concerned, try to devise a level ratio which you feel would work best for you. Health is rather important on legendary, so perhaps you spend two levels focusing on that, one on magicka, and continue the cycle until you feel you have a satisfactory amount of health -- find your happy medium.

I recommend using the http://skyrimcalculator.com/ for organizing your characters perks. Other than that, I'll also include that I once tried playing on legendary from the beginning and found it to be a very unrewarding and tedious experience, but to each his own. Be sure to save often and have fun.

You don't need to necessarily like followers, but trying to clear nearly any lair or crypt without them on legendary difficulty when you're level 10> is foolish. They serve a crucial role and that is to draw the attention away from you.

Agreed. Sneaking with a follower is near impossible.

Poisons, OP. Poisons.

Learn to make them. Prepare to use them.

Alchemy should be your best friend in Legendary mode.

I love having followers and companions, they make a single player game less boring/lonely. You pretty much need them on legendary as well. Not to mention they can carry a ton of things for you. I think their AI is okay other than collision detection and walking into them. They don't move out of the way very well. If you are playing below master though they aren't as useful.

I can sneak just fine with a follower, they have muffle on their boots though. But i only sneak enough for some archery stealth shot. If you want to sneak and skip an entire dungeon though then don't take one, however most people would want to clear it. Sneaking to melee attack a follower might run as well.

The classic " sword 'n' board " build can hold it's own. And no I don't think having an army of servants would make you OP. If you are a PCer then maybe cause you can have so many followers but on console...no, not OP.

Skyrim is not really a follower type game, I don't know if Legedary changes that.

Followers in a follower type game is ok, but it would seem to defeat the purpose of having the extra challenge of Legendary if having followers, and especially as Androxine Vortex is after tactical play.

Myself, I am a big fan of having very high Stramina right from the beginning, later maybe a few points into Health........... but I almost got shouted off the forum when I said that.

...but it really does work, so.......

Archery and speed does work wonders.

yes it is, you will just die sometimes.... or often, depending of what build you chose i decided for the build first and afterwards for the difficulty - that was not the smartest thing to do so i died a lot. i played a http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=184748904 with destruction, conjuration, restoration, alteration and one hand dual wield wearing clothes (in the beginning heavy armor though).... destruction is rather poor at higher difficulties, 1h dual wield means no blocking and mages armor means no armor cap. i got quite often one-hit, especially from archers shooting at me from somewhere. the only thing saving me, was conjuration. you can not do worse than this, i guess

Why do you think followers don't fit into Skyrim? A lot games, movies and books etc have multiple members forming a group to venture on an adventure.

Also having a follower doesnt make legendary easy. The just help distract some of the enemies. Really they are just a bit of a damage sponge and do some themselves.

Well, in vanilla game would be fun playing on legendary. But with the mods Im using, I NEED to use a follower and well equiped in order to survive in expert and being level 40.

So its fun when things turn into a real difficult. Makes the achievements more rewarding indeed. And when you are really powerfull, you FEEL really powerfull.

The Elder Scrolls games are not Bioware-style party-based games. They are 1st-person action/RPGs. They have as much in common with shooters as they do with Dungeons&Dragons. Parties work in Bioware's games because the isometric perspective allows you to see the entire party at once and the gameplay mechanics allow you to issue commands to party members on-the-fly.

Bethesda has none of that. Since the beginning their games have been designed to be played with lone heroes and Skyrim is no different. They have only begun including followers recently because so many players called for them to be included. But frankly they don't fit into Bethesda's design philosophy very well, and probably never will.

Sorry man, I just don't like followers they get in the way. Having an extra tank does make things quite a bit easier in general, but I prefer just starting battles on my own terms without someone charging in. Stealth melee would probably be impossible with one, but I don't really like stealth either(sneaking everywhere can get tedious - but yes I know how powerful it can be)

Not really. Not sure if this was while I was still playing without mods, but sneak attacks would do so little damage at the start of the game and after you hide, by the time the NPC would stop looking for you and it would be safe to shoot again they would already restore all the health they lost by your 1st shooting. Melee attack on a mage-oriented character would usually result being insta killed by ice spike.

I'd suggest using either heavy armor (because wolves and even bigger version of mudcrabs can insta kill you at lowest levels) and simply avoiding spell casters before you can get some resistance through found or enchanted gear of ingredients that can net you elemental resistance potions, or choosing a Breton and heavily relying on Conjure Familiar which they start with and become a summoner. Also, illusion spells can be used with anything said above but also as a warrior and while being alone. You don't really have to calm your enemy after each hit, but using several spells in combination, like frenzy before attack a group, fear to reduce the number of people attacking you, or calm for the same effect as well as to get some time for other actions during the battle etc can get you far even without a companion.

I do not suggest you to use such a wide array of skills because you can't afford to spend perks between too much skills instead of perking out small numbers of main skills or you'll end up having perks all around the place and then not being able to get the higher perks in your main skills in levels where you'll get really strong enemies spawned at you. You can expand your skillset later in the game when you can back it up with your strong skills when needed. You can use many different skills at the start of the game, but use your perks only on couple of them, and for example take only one damaging ranged skill, you don't need both destruction and archery.

If you really wanna go OP and make your game easy you could always take Smithing and Enchanting, a companion, use Conjuration and Illusion and Archery to add damage when having nothing better to do (or melee if you wanna go in not to be bored).

But I don't suggest that, the way I played it, and horribly enjoyed it was like this- if you have the nerve take archery, build it up a bit by hunting docile game around Whiterun, then move on to wolves, then bears and saber cats and onwards. I was wearing heavy armor, and for enemies that came too close I had a sword and shield ready on the side. Since this was a hunter and a scout character I was also into Alchemy so a potion and a posion here and there aided me in melee battle. But this kind of gameplay is really slow and you yourself perhaps ain't gonna find joy in spending several weeks playing a deer hunter.

Granted I have never tried legendary. I even forgot it exists as I typically have it set to either somewhere in between adept to master. Then again I always play in clothing or robes as some variation of a magic user and those arrows and blades can hurt.

That said conjuration would be a fantastic choice given that it scales well with increases in difficulty. The durability of your summoned minions increases along with that of your enemies. The same would apply for frenzied foes and followers as well. So Breton would be a good choice given their inclination towards magic and their as awesome as ever racials. Going unamored might be a bit bold though. The Lord stone would be a good priority as well as mages will be some of the most difficult foes until you build up your magic resistance.

Well the game is not kinda built that way, the positioning of a group for best effects, it's more a single person play, no group is going to be made the Dragonborn group by the Greybeards, it's a one-guy thing.... But, on occasion, at highly difficuly locations, a follower at that location might offer help, that can be acceptable, but best try it on your own, there always seems a way to win, just change your play or come back later. I have a liking of leading enemies back into traps, often way back in the complex, I don't think a follower would fit very well in that kind of play, pretty sure they wouldn't, there are so many traps to make use of, and pick up.

I did suggest being mainly an archer with speed, the other half of that is to have a close comat weapon play as well, I don't think anyone wants to have just one kind of play, and a bit of conjuration would complete the package.

It's a great feeling when having a tactical win all by yourself anyway.

Yeah followers do definitely have their pros and cons.

When i found i could have one though i thought it was kinda cool. However I'm i think master difficulty would be pretty hard without one and i think id give up on legendary. Until you could get high enough like level 40+ and start enchanting, smithing improve etc anyway.

The only bioware game I've really played really are the mass effect games and it works pretty well in that. I have tried dragon age but the micromanaging of the group did feel a bit exhausting and tedious. So I can I understand the negativity towards followers of players are used to playing without them in pay games. I think Bethesda did a pretty good job with them though despite a few annoyances.

I hate followers. They always get in the way and they're boring.

If you go the Archer way, always buy up every high quality arrow you can, that way the shops will alway stack up with the good ones.